[caption id="attachment_1509" align="aligncenter" width="651"] Leslie Simpson in A RECKONING[/caption]
FilmFrak Exclusive: A RECKONING Interview with Leslie Simpson
Prepare to enter the artistic consciousness in this email interview with the singular...
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[audio mp3="http://filmfrak.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Film_Frak_Episode_19_NOV2017.mp3"][/audio]
Welcome to FilmFrak Podcast 19.
October arrived with an abundance of must-see titles but many were limited release only and didn't make it to...
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FilmFrak's 20 Great Horror Films for Halloween
It’s Halloween and that means most of us horror fiends are staying up beyond the midnight hour with our unblinking eyeballs weeping blood in a motion picture induced haemolacriao. The juicy marrow of...
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Category Drama

Before I was the Fraker I was John Doe and like everything else in this universe all cinema itself is interconnected on a molecular level. Slowly over time I plan to import many of my older reviews over to this new site under the banner of FROM THE VAULT. The format is simple, anytime I review a film here and it can be thematically linked to a previous critique from the old site I will be sharing.

Excited! Tonight my local retro-moviehouse is screening the new William Friedkin supervised Blu-Ray restoration of his masterpiece SORCERER. Seeing this film on the bigscreen is one of those bucket-list cinema experiences that only comes around once a decade if that...

Before I was the Fraker I was John Doe and like everything else in this universe all cinema itself is interconnected on a molecular level. Slowly over time I plan to import many of my older reviews over to this new site under the banner of FROM THE VAULT. The format is simple, anytime I review a film here and it can be thematically linked to a previous critique from the old site I will be sharing. With the release of DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES this weekend and my subsequent review which you can read HERE I figured this would be an ideal time for world’s to collide. Hope you like this trip into my past writerly adventures.

Last week’s posts focused exclusively on instrumental scoring with Part 1 & Part 2 of my Favourite Fraking Soundtracks from 1995 to the present day. This week it’s time for Part 3, Vocal Compilation Soundtracks.

Unlike non-vocal film scoring, lyrical tracks can use their words to inform audiences of scene intent or foreshadow events to come. Comprised of familiar tracks they can also carry a nostalgic, sentimental weight or musically set a distinct time period...

Thanks to my new fraking cinefiend pal for the inspiring this post. (You know who you are music man.)

The cinematic experience has always been as much about sound as vision. Right from the silent days the Nickelodeon picture house’s musical accompaniment was played live within the venue. Whether elevating emotion, punctuating comedy, heightening tension or rousing spirits, film soundtracks have always been essential to fine tuning audience response to a scenes tone and purpose.

As varied and expressive as the medium itself, ranging from the minimalist scoring that unobtrusively laces nuanced drama to operat...

Director John Michael McDonagh (brother of Martin McDonagh of IN BRUGES fame) reteams with Brendon Gleeson for what looks like another bent trip that may recapture the magic of their earlier delight THE GUARD. I.T CROWD fans note Chris O’Dowd in the cast. GAME OF THRONES fans look out for Aidan Gillen.

I FRAKED UP!: Normally I would be speaking in absolutes, stating a subjective opinion as though it were fact. Confident in the knowledge I had seen all the ‘important’ films of the previous year and possessed an informed overview of the entire cinematic spectrum. This year I have to declare my ignorance. To put it in other words, amongst numerous titles, I haven’t seen GRAVITY, 12 YEARS A SLAVE, WOLF OF WALL STREET, HER, AMERICAN HUSTLE or INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, six films that seem to be atop many people’s list for ‘film of the year.’ So there it is, glaring omissions in screening aside, here are my 13 fraking favourite films of the 2013. (In Alphabetical order only)

BLUE CAPRICE is a fraking compelling and observant real life thriller.

A tightly bound domestic nightmare that constricts around its subject with suffocating tension before taking its intense but familiar set up to a bleaker place. PRISONERS thrives on murkier morality than the genre usually dares, even when it loosens its grip with an uneven final quarter the emotional devastation and raging desperation of earlier scenes resonates.

It’s Thanksgiving Day in an outlying Philadelphia suburb. The Dover and The Birch families are celebrating the holiday...

Outside a quixotically maintained cinema. The kind that boasts midnight screenings of CHARLEY VARRICK, KISS ME DEADLY and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. ~Features Takeshi Miike and Nicolas Refn-Winding in the coming attractions, still serves beer and is laced with the faint aroma of ganja. ~

The movie house marquee flashes the latest releases, a Saturday matinee and tonight’s after dark double bill LE SAMOURAI & LEON: The PROFESSIONAL.

Under the pulsing neon FRAKER1 and FRAKER2 come into view. FRAKER1 is in his early 30’s. Tall with the look of a young Jeff Goldblum he struts like a scruffy lookin’ herder of some fantastical creature. ~FRAKER2, 41, walks with a slight limp out of habit and reminds of John Cazale.